


walk of shame (from the comfort of your own home)

by spock



Category: Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Anniversary, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flirting, Frenemies, M/M, Opposites Attract, Phone Calls & Telephones, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-08 03:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: Silence stretches across the other end of the line before a voice finally says, “Wellhelloto you too, tiger.”





	walk of shame (from the comfort of your own home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



Getting a line installed into the trailer had been a mistake. Alan had known that from the beginning, yet still he had aquecented, and now here he was, phone damn near ringing itself off the cradle with calls that hadn’t let up since he’d awoken that morning. 

It hadn’t been so bad earlier in the day, when the sun was on Alan’s side and he was able to escape from that incessant ringing, wasting hours sifting through dirt on site, so far away from his trailer that not even the echoes reached him. He stayed out well after the light had left, working until the bravest of the grad students had mumbled something about no one wanting to leave until the senior-most member had left; Alan had packed it in for their sakes more than his own.

Alan’s eyes are resolute in avoiding his calendar as much as his ears are the shrill of the phone. He considers fixing himself a drink. It’s been a long day. A long year. 

The ringing stops. Alan stares at the clock he hung opposite the couch, watches as the minutes tick from one forwards to another. The press can only care about the anniversary for so long before the news cycle skips to something else. Maybe all the deadlines to get anything submitted today have passed, and Alan is free.

The ringing starts. Alan snaps and he’s up before he knows what he’s doing, before he can remind himself that this is a bad idea. He shoves the phone against his ear and growls, “ _What_?”

Silence stretches across the other end of the line before a voice finally says, “Well _hello_ to you too, tiger.” 

Tension bleeds itself down Alan’s spine, disappearing into the floor at his feet. If ever there was a time where Alan might actually describe himself as glad to hear Ian’s voice, it would be today. 

“I’d ask why you’re calling, but I know how gossip spreads in academia.” He blames the day, the hour, the fact that he’s desperate to talk about something other than that goddamned Park, or how desperate he is to have any conversation at all, really, that doesn’t involve someone sending him worried glances as they talk around the other subject he’s been avoiding all week, for the way he continues on, with a sigh, “Although it isn’t gossip so much as just news, I guess.”

Ian doesn’t bother to stifle his laugh as it hiccups across the line. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” 

Alan stays quiet as he waits for Ian to give the real reason why he’s called, if it didn’t have anything to do with Alan’s social life imploding. The seconds tick by.

“Alright,” Ian says, sounding put out. “Of course that’s why I called. She-who-shall-not-be-named, I get it. I’ve been there. All I’m saying is: so you’re saying there’s a chance?”

“You must not have heard it all then, then.” Alan walks the phone over to the couch and sits back down with a groan. He spent too much time digging today, his body aches in ways that are anything but sated. “She’s already got a new boyfriend. You missed your window.” 

“Who says I was talking about her?” Ian asks, whip-quick. 

Alan laughs despite himself. 

“What are you wearing?”

“I’ll hang up,” Alan says. He means it too. Partly, anyway. 

“No you won’t.” Ian sounds so sure of himself. It makes Alan want to hang up right then, just to spite him, even if it would be more than a little like cutting off his own nose. There’s rustling on the other side of the line. “You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve just lost my shirt.”

Alan manages some self-control and keeps from laughing this time, if only because he knows it’ll do nothing but serve Ian’s already inflated ego. It’s far too early in the conversation for that. “You know what?” Alan asks. “I actually can. You seem to be in the habit of doing that.” 

“You remembered! I’ve got to say, I’m flattered.”

Alan closes his eyes and indulges himself to those memories of Ian, his chest open to the gaze of anyone so inclined to look at it. Alan’s free hand drifts down to his lap and settles over himself in his pants. He tries to remember the little details, how his eyes had met Ellie’s more than a few times over that chest. The two of them had been solid then, but there was hardly anything wrong with looking, was there? 

The thoughts bring back Alan’s memories of everything else, everything that had happened on this very day just the year prior, and it’s insane to think that it had only been a _year_ , and — 

“Because I’m sure your silence means that you’re dying to know, I’ll save you the suspense. Of course I’m circumcised, Alan, really, who do you think you’re talking to?”

Ian brings Alan back to himself. It’s now, not then. Alan squeezes himself a few times, grounding himself in the present, and takes a second. His throat clicks when as swallows, loud and close enough to the receiver that it has to carry over the line. 

“I’m hanging up for real,” Alan says, and his voice comes close to possessing the mimicry of authority. 

Ian’s laugh is back, rough and deep. “Helped get your mind off it all, though, didn’t I?”

“I’m not sure this is much better,” Alan says, sidestepping the question. 

“C’mon, Alan. Say something nice to keep me company. I can’t be doing all the work here. We’re both traumatized,” Ian says, sounding anything but. Alan can’t imagine anything sticking to Ian that long. That’s what has always made Ian so damn likable to Alan, as much as it makes Alan hate him for it too. 

He’s always believed the reason Ian’s so good at his chaos work is that it’s practically autobiographical.

Alan rolls his lips into his mouth as he thinks of something to say. If ever there was a day for something like this, today is that day. “Fine,” Alan says, once he’s decided. “Close your eyes.” 

“I’m liking this.” Ian’s voice sounds like it’s coming directly from his chest. It’s so over the top that Alan has to work even harder than before to keep down his laugh; it’ll come out too breathy, and Ian would never let him live that down for the rest of their lives. 

“Imagine what you’ll be doing once we hang up,” Alan keeps his voice even, soft, almost. He closes his own eyes too. 

Ian’s voice is equally quiet, but there’s a thread of laughter running through it. “I know you like to think that I’m nothing but ego, Alan, but getting off on myself is a bit much, even for me.”

“Ian,” Alan says. 

“Alan.” 

“That’s what I’ll be doing too.” Alan presses his grin into the receiver when Ian honest-to-God moans.

“Well, now we definitely can’t hang up.”

“Goodnight, Ian. I’ll talk to you later.” 

“Sooner than you goddamn think.”


End file.
